Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's charming romantic comedy/fantasy
told of the life of a whimsical French cafe worker in Montmartre
who often attempted to bring happiness to the lives of others.

In this film's romantic climax, painfully-shy Amelie
(Audrey Tautou) finally met quirky Nino Quincampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz),
a lonely adult video store clerk, at her apartment's door. She knew
he had the strange habit of collecting discarded passport photo strips
from photo booths and putting them into a photo album. She silenced
him and pulled him inside.

After they stared awkwardly at each other for a few
moments, she surprised him with a tender and slow kiss near his lips,
on his neck, and a kiss above his left eye -- making it a child-like
kissing game.

Amelie's Three Kisses - A Kissing Game

She then pointed to her lips to instruct him to follow
suit -- he replied reciprocally by kissing her in the same three
locations.

In the next scene after she drew the curtains, they
were viewed in bed together where she held him close to her as he
slept and rested his head on her.

Angel Eyes (2001)

Apres-Swim
Naked Kisses

This emotional melodramatic thriller by Mexican-born
director Luis Mandoki was about the tough life of cops working in
Chicago's precincts. It told about a romantic relationship that developed
between one of the cops and a do-gooder:

feisty and embittered Chicago cop Sharon Pogue
(Jennifer Lopez)

enigmatic and haunted Steve "Catch" Lambert
(James Caviezel)

Sharon's life was saved during a violent shooting by
guardian-angel "Catch," returning the favor from a year
earlier when she saved him after a gruesome and traumatic car accident
that killed his wife and son. (The movie was falsely marketed as
having a Sixth Sense type of supernatural plot twist.)

Inevitably, their relationship grew and intensified
at a swimming hole in a state park during a picnic, where they went
swimming (in their underwear).

While kissing him in the water, she whispered to him:

"Kiss me someplace I've never been kissed."

Then shortly afterwards, the camera panned across their
picnic blanket to where they were seen kissing and embracing naked
(without revealing anything).

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Platonic
Kisses, Then Intercourse ASAP

Director Ron Howard's Best Picture-winning biopic was
about the life of an Economic Sciences Nobel Laureate who also suffered
from delusions, erratic behavior and paranoid schizophrenia.

Brilliant genius John Forbes Nash (Russell Crowe),
a mathematics instructor, expressed his love for one of his MIT students,
Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly), while they shared an outdoor picnic
together. When she urged him to share his thoughts ("Try me"),
he agreed. He bluntly explained how he really wanted to have sex
with her:

"I find you attractive. Your aggressive moves
towards me indicate that you feel the same way. But still, ritual
requires that we continue with a number of platonic activities
before we have sex. I am proceeding with those activities, but
in point of actual fact, all I really want to do is have intercourse
with you as soon as possible. (pause) Are you gonna slap me now?"

She leaned forward and kissed him, then asked: "How
was that result?"

He responded by taking her for a second kiss.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Pursuit
for a "Nice Boys" Kiss

Director Sharon Maguire's romantic comedy told about
the disastrous love life of the thirty-something, always embarrassed,
ever-single Londoner, plump title character Bridget Jones (Renee
Zellweger), an adaptation based upon Henry Fielding's novel. Her
romantic dalliances occurred with two other major characters:

barrister and friend Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), the
son of her parents' friends

She had many times earlier avoided the kisses of Mark,
thinking he was arrogant, and he had thought that she was foolish.

In the film's conclusion, Mark told Bridget that he
wasn't planning to go to America, although he had come to kiss Bridget
goodbye. She invited him into her apartment and told him
"keep yourself busy, read something" while she was changing
her clothes in her bedroom, and promised: "I'll be right with
you." She expectantly told herself: "Definitely an occasion
for genuinely tiny knickers." He happened to scan through her
diary and discovered a series of insults that she had written about
him. She thought that he was boring and dull:

"He acts like he's got a giant gherkin thrust
up his backside...Mark Darcy is rude, he's unpleasant, he's DULL
- no wonder his clever wife left him. I hate him. I HATE HIM!"

He left and went out into the snowy night without saying
goodbye. Realizing why he had left, she ran after him into the snowy
street, wearing only running shoes, a purple lingerie top, an ill-fitting
beige sweater and leopard-striped panties.

She caught up to him in the street as he left a store,
and she told him that her diary was foolish:

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean
it. Well, I meant it, but I was so stupid that I didn't mean
what I meant. For Christ's sakes. It's only a diary. Everyone
knows diaries are just full of crap."

During her ranting, he was silent, but then he replied:

"I know that. I was just buying you a new
one (in order) to make a new start, perhaps."

He revealed a new diary from his coat pocket, bought
for her to begin a new diary. She embraced him as they hungrily kissed,
while passers-by watched in amusement on the street corner. In the
midst of a series of kisses during snow flurries, she pondered:

Bridget: "Wait a minute. Nice boys don't kiss
like that."
Mark:
"Oh yes they f--kin' do!" (He wrapped her up in his coat.)

Moulin Rouge! (2001, US/Australia)

"All
You Need is Love" Kiss

In Baz Luhrmann's dizzying and hyper-real spectacle
- a conglomerate of pop songs in a post-modern musical, a star-crossed
romance developed between:

Although Satine could save the nightclub and its owner
Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent) from financial ruin by giving herself
to wealthy, smitten Duke of Monroth (Richard Roxburgh), she risked
everything for a tragic love affair with Christian, who assured her
during a magical duet of Elephant Love Medley: "All you need
is love."

In the tearjerker ending, she died in Christian's arms,
with her reassuring words: "I'll always be with you."

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

"Have
You Ever Done This Before?" Exploratory Lesbian Kissing

Best Director-nominated David Lynch's surreal, mystifying,
mind-twisting dream-like work was a modern-day film noir about Hollywood
fame.

It told about the twisting and turning dual characterizations
of the two female protagonists:

In the film's first half - it was basically Diane's
romanticized dream sequence (later learned) in which she imagined
herself as successful blonde ingenue and wannabe LA actress-newcomer
Betty.

In the first of their two steamy, topless, hesitant
and exploratory lesbian love scenes, 'Rita' removed her robe, and
slipped naked into Betty's bed. Betty mentioned:
"It's more comfortable than the couch, isn't it?" Rita leaned
over and kissed Betty innocently on the forehead:

Rita: "Good night, sweet Betty."
Betty: "Goodnight."

Betty looked up longingly and kissed Rita on lips -
followed by more hungry kisses.

When they started touching each other sexually, they
spoke further, and Betty admitted her love for Rita:

Betty: "Have you ever done this before?"
Rita: "I don't know. Have you?"
Betty: "I want to with you. I'm in love with you. I'm in love
with you."

This was accompanied by more kisses and the sexual
touching of each other's breasts.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001)

Yucky
Spoof Kiss

In an unfunny parody-spoof film of teen comedies of
the previous decade, the main copycat scene duplicated the same-sex
kiss between Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions
(1999). The scene of learning how to kiss was replayed with:

Catherine Wyler (Mia Kirschner)

red-headed older lady Sadie (Beverly Polcyn)

After a first quick-peck ("That wasn't so scary"),
Catherine removed her sunglasses and told her subject:

"OK, let's try again, only this time, I'm
gonna stick my tongue in your mouth. And when I do that, I want
you to massage my tongue with yours - and that's what first base
is...Eyes closed!"

Another line was added to the original, offered by
Catherine after she replaced her sunglasses:

"Now, have you ever eaten pussy before?"

Save the Last Dance (2001)

Inter-racial
Kiss

This cliched, dramatic dance film produced by MTV Films
also won MTV's Movie Awards Best Kiss honors for the kiss in the
discreetly-filmed, inter-racial love scene between two teenaged Chicago-area
dancers after they had become romantically involved:

They undressed each other and tenderly kissed each
other while making love.

Shallow Hal (2001)

Inner
Beauty Kiss

In this Farrelly Brothers' romantic comedy, "Shallow" Hal
Larson (Jack Black) always had a reputation for superficially wanting
physical beauty and ignoring other qualities of the females he dated.

After being experiencing hypnotherapy with self-help
guru and coach Tony Robbins (as Himself), Hal began to see everyone's
inner beauty.

He first met extremely overweight 300 lb. Rosemary
Shanahan (Gwyneth Paltrow) in a department store trying on large-sized
underwear, not realizing that his unappreciated compliments about
her beauty and fitness were thought to be sarcastic rather than truly
genuine - she called him a "jackass."

In his eyes, she was beautiful (she performed a striptease
for him - and he called her "Houdini" for the trick of
making her purple slim-fitting thong grow in size) - but in others'
views of her, she was morbidly obese.

In the film's finale at Rosemary's bon voyage (going-away)
party, after dating and then avoiding Rosemary after becoming unhypnotized,
Hal decided to reconcile with Rosemary and tell her of his true love
before she left the country for 14 months:

"Rosemary, I'm so sorry that I hurt you. I've
been really dumb. I'm immature, I'm unthoughtful. I'm a freakin'
idiot. I love you. You're the only girl I've ever loved. I just
didn't want you to go away without knowing that...If you let
me, I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

To her surprise, he announced that he was joining her
in the Peace Corps - he kissed her as everyone applauded.

Pretty Princess Fiona (voice of Cameron Diaz) was imprisoned
by diminutive Lord Farquaad (voice of John Lithgow) in a castle,
and cursed with a witch's spell from childhood that could only be
broken by true love's first kiss.

[Note: In the film's plot twist - she was a human by
day and an ogre by night.]

When loveable green ogre Shrek (voice of Mike Myers)
rescued her from a tower in a castle protected by a fire-breathing
Dragon, she objected: "You should sweep me off my feet out yonder
window and down a rope onto your valiant steed" - when Shrek
later removed his armored helmet, she was expecting Prince Charming
instead of an ogre ("You're not supposed to be an ogre").

Later in the film, Donkey and Shrek arrived just as
Fiona's forced wedding ceremony to Farquaad commenced - Shrek burst
in to interrupt, crying out: "I object" as he ran to the
altar, where Farquaad was about to kiss Fiona to seal the forced
marriage. Shrek asserted that Farquaad wasn't her true love - and
that instead he had feelings of love for her. As the sun set, Fiona
turned into an ogress -- and revealed her true identity to Shrek,
Farquaad and the entire congregation.

As he declared himself king with the binding marriage,
Farquaad ordered his men to kill Shrek and imprison Fiona back in
the tower for the rest of her life. The Dragon was summoned with
a whistle, and it burst through the stained-glass window and devoured
Farquaad with one gulp. Perched on the Dragon's head, the Donkey
quipped: "Celebrity marriages. They never last, do they?"

True Love's First Kiss

Shrek and Fiona both declared their love for each other
and kissed - true love's first kiss. The assembled audience was cued
to say: "Awwwww!" Bathed in golden light, Fiona was freed
from her life-long curse as it was broken, resulting in a glorious
explosion of light, shattering the church's stained glass windows.
and in another twist, Fiona remained an ogre permanently -- love's
true form.

Unsure of herself when she stated: "I'm supposed
to be beautiful," Shrek reassured her: "But you are beautiful." Donkey
added: "I was hoping this would be a happy ending." Shrek
covered the camera as they kissed a second time.